


how was i to know i'm not strong?

by TouchTheExoplanets



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24620713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TouchTheExoplanets/pseuds/TouchTheExoplanets
Summary: Nebula tells them about the Garden. She tells them about Morag. She does not tell them about Vormir.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	how was i to know i'm not strong?

**Author's Note:**

> I found this buried in my files (under the name 'Untitled,' thanks a lot, past me) and liked it well enough to post. I remember wondering during Endgame why Natasha and Clint were surprised about the conditions of retrieving the soul stone - surely Nebula knew how Gamora died and would have told them? I'm sure there's a convoluted in-movie answer for why she didn't, but instead of looking it up I wrote this. Very on-brand for me.
> 
> Title from "Forest Fire" by Brighton.

Being a person is hard. People have emotions, desires, vulnerabilities, weaknesses. They get attached, they get distracted, and they get killed. Nebula has seen it happen, over and over again.

Being a weapon, however, is simple. Weapons have a singular purpose. They are dangerous and they are powerful. They can be broken, and they can be repaired. That was why, even when it hurt, Nebula would thank her father for replacing her soft, vulnerable body with metal and whirring gears. _Make me a weapon_ , she’d think, _so I can better serve you_. _Make me tougher, stronger, faster. Make me better._

People were weak. Weapons were strong. To Nebula, that wasn’t a belief. It was a fact. An immutable rule in the universe, listed alongside the laws of physics and time.

The only one who ever challenged that was her sister.

Gamora was so . . . _soft_. She was thoughtful and quiet and sometimes even gentle. She was easily the most person-like person in Nebula’s life. She was also easily the deadliest weapon Nebula had ever seen. Her thoughtfulness translated to intuition, her quietness to perception, her gentleness to grace. It shouldn’t have been possible, but there it was.

Their father always favored her. Nebula hated her for that.

Gamora’s betrayal was as gracefully executed and brutally effective as everything else she did. Once she made up her mind, she never wavered again. Nebula had never had that kind of strength. She did not turn away from her father so much as she stumbled away, bleeding and snarling like a wounded animal. She tried to choose _person_ , like Gamora did, but she was too far down the path of _weapon_. Every spike of emotion hurt and terrified her. At least when her father had taken her apart piece by piece, she had known that he would put her back together again. This time, she was terrified she would shatter into a billion pieces. People cannot be repaired.

She didn’t shatter. Gamora saw to that.

And then their father killed her.

And how was Nebula supposed to remain a person when it hurt so much? This was why people were vulnerable. This was why people were so easily broken.

So she gathered up the shattered pieces of her steel heart and forged them into one unbroken piece, a weapon so powerful that it was capable of killing a Titan. That was all that mattered. Nebula didn’t think about anything else. Her sister was dead. What else was there?

Being a weapon was so much easier than being a person.

Being a weapon made it easy to watch her father beheaded, to close his eyes and feel only bitter satisfaction. Being a weapon made it easy to spit on her father’s corpse by traveling the universe and lessening the damage he had done. And when it came time to further undo his work by returning the people of the universe back to their rightful places, being a weapon made it easy to send Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, people who called her their friend, to Vormir to die.

She didn’t think about Gamora, about how terrified and alone she must’ve been. She didn’t think about the anguish that racked her mechanical body and the sudden, certain knowledge that her sister had just been murdered. She didn’t think about her brief time as a person. She didn’t think about the way Barton and Romanoff read each other’s minds. She didn’t think about her anguish, reborn in one of them.

All she thought about is this: the soul stone requires a sacrifice. The sacrifice must be of love. It had to be Barton and Romanoff. Nobody else would be able to get the job done. Nobody else loved like they did.

So, when they ask her to explain Vormir, she does not tell them about the guardian or the cliff. And she makes sure it’s them on that jet.

She does not watch the jet lift off of Morag. She does not think about what is coming for them. She’s a weapon. She does not care.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments make me a better writer!


End file.
